From Aspiration to Action: Socioeconomic Disparity in the Translation of Educational Goals into Time Investment

Although educational aspirations are widely viewed as central to attainment, less is known about how they translate into academic behavior. This study investigates the behavioral consequences of aspirations using nationally representative data from South Korea and dynamic panel models with individual fixed effects. Results show that aspirations predict both self-study time and private tutoring time even after accounting for prior behavior and unobserved individual characteristics. However, the aspiration–behavior link varies by age and socioeconomic status, especially for tutoring time. The aspiration–tutoring relationship strengthens as students grow older and is more pronounced among those with highly educated parents. These patterns reveal systematic differences in aspiration–investment alignment, which refers to the extent to which students can convert their educational goals into concrete academic behaviors, highlighting a novel mechanism through which socioeconomic disparities in educational outcomes persist.